No answer, and I tried to open the door, but the chest held it firmly in place. “Shall I look over the transom?” I asked.
“For pity’s sake do not repeat Winnie’s experience,” Adelaide begged.
“Then I will look in by the corridor door,” I said resolutely, and I stepped down the hall and into the studio. The door was open, so was Miss Noakes’s door just opposite, and that watchful lady sat rocking and reading beside her little centre table. She was not too much absorbed, however, to give me a keen questioning glance—but she said nothing, for as assistant teacher in art I had a perfect right to frequent the studio.
The moon was shining in clearly through the great window, and every object was distinctly visible, but there was no one in the room. I opened the door leading to the turret staircase and listened; all was silent, and I screwed up my courage and descended, finding the door at the foot safely locked. The great Rembrandt hat lay on the chest in front of our door, and the Professor’s mahl-stick, or long support on which he rested his arm when painting, leaned beside it. I could not see any change in the disposition of the pictures on the wall, or other indications of what the Professor had been doing, if indeed it was the Professor, and I did not know of his ever before visiting the studio at that hour. As I came out I noticed that Miss Noakes was still rocking before her open door, her slits of eyes glancing sharply up.
“Have you seen any one go into the studio lately?” I asked.
“No one has passed through the corridor since the beginning of study hour, with the exception of Miss Winifred De Witt.”
“Then this door must have been open all the time, and you have seen no one in the studio?”
“I have observed no one. Why do you ask?”
“We thought we saw the shadow of a man on the transom.”
“Nonsense—it is silly to be frightened at nothing. It was probably Professor Waite. If you young ladies would interest yourselves less in the movements of that young man it would be much more becoming in you.”